We believe every boy and man deserves people to show up for, and people who show up for them. But at a moment when friendship, civic participation, and belonging have all eroded, that kind of connection is harder to find. For too many boys and men, the everyday social fabric of male life has frayed, leaving them without the relationships and community that help people weather life's hardest moments. The Co-Lab's community and fraternity grantees are reaching boys and men at risk of disengaging. Their work is rooted in community spaces, strengthens identity through contribution and commitment, and builds the kind of durable peer networks that can carry men through transitions in work, family, and midlife.

Every boy deserves a school where he is engaged, supported, and can see a future for himself. But for too many boys, that isn't the reality. Disengagement from education means showing up less, falling behind, losing interest, and eventually disconnecting from school altogether. For boys already navigating difficult circumstances, this can close off pathways to opportunity before they've ever had a chance to find their footing. The Co-Lab's education and skills grantees work upstream, reshaping how boys experience school before disengagement takes hold. By supporting learning environments that are boy-friendly, vocationally relevant, and grounded in belonging and relationship, they focus on root causes rather than symptoms and build practices strong enough to replicate across school systems and reach a wider range of students.